After a brutal winter storm season, cities across the United States are declaring a war on potholes as local officials race to make roads safe.

The East Coast and Midwest were battered by heavy snow and sub-zero temperatures for weeks in early 2026, leaving behind tens of thousands of potholes on roads and highways.

Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott said his city is still dealing with the aftermath of “ice-mageddon”, even in early spring. The Maryland city is used to heavy snow that then rapidly melts but low temperatures in late January and February kept ice intact for weeks.

“We had below-freezing temperatures for basically a month,” Scott told The Independent. “So it wasn’t going anywhere, and it was chunks of ice.”

Scott, who has joined road crews filling potholes, is overhauling Baltimore’s resurfacing program with a new public data dashboard and changes to city contracting. He wants to fill 25,000 potholes in the next 90 days. The city tackled 134,000 potholes last year.

The work has involved breaking up ice blocks that felt like concrete, he said. The salt put down to combat icy conditions unfortunately worsened the pothole problem. Road salt lowers the freezing temperature of water which then seeps into pavement, and helps develop potholes.

“With the amount of salt that we had to put down, that’s going to create potholes,” Scott said. “Where there is salt used, there will be potholes.”

He’s just one of hundreds of city leaders facing similar challenges after this winter and who are now in the midst of “pothole blitzes.”

As of late March, New York saw a 119 percent increase in pothole complaints to the city’s 311 system compared to the same period in 2025, the largest year-over-year increase ever, according to a New York Post analysis.

In Nashua, New Hampshire, city officials warned that a “very wet winter with very low lows, and weirdly strange high temps” were creating a “perfect storm” for potholes.

Chris Leo, a resident of nearby Manchester, recently lost a tire to a massive pothole on the way home from dinner.

“Think of a black abyss, like a black hole, and then double it, is basically the deepness of these potholes,” Leo told NHPR. “It was like the Mariana Trench.”

In Connecticut, drivers reported more potholes on state roads in the first two weeks of March than in all of March 2025.

In some jurisdictions, potholes moved from a daily annoyance to an all-out crisis.

In February, Sumpter Township in the Detroit metro area declared a public safety emergency over the state of its gravel roads.

Roads in the township had become “severely washboarded, rutted and potholed, contain standing water due to drainage failures, and significant segments of road are nearly impassable,” town supervisor Timothy Bowman wrote in a public declaration.

In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, however, it was business as usual, according to John Samuelson, director of public works.

“We’re doing OK,” he told The Independent. “I have not heard of any increase in potholes as a result of the rains this year.”

He said the city generally fills potholes within 24 hours of being notified.

To raise public awareness and focus city efforts, leaders in places like New York City and Baltimore have launched “pothole blitzes” to tackle the problem. The Big Apple has filled more than 66,000 potholes since January, according to the local Department of Transportation.

Scott, the Baltimore mayor, said he enjoys joining the pothole crews on the job himself. It reminds him of helping out at his family’s HVAC business. “I’m a hands-on guy,” he said.

When mayoral elbow grease fails, cities have also turned to special equipment to patch up the winter-weary roads.

“We’ve had hundreds and hundreds of people calling after one of the worst winters on record — and that’s why I decided to put together a massive public facilities operation to repair the potholes, using what we like to call ‘the pothole killer,’” Bridgeport, Connecticut, Mayor Joe Ganim told News 12 last month.

The pothole killer set-up includes a truck with spray injection machines and a “hot box” asphalt recycler. Residents can also report potholes via an app, he said.

The costs of all these potholes can add up. A Manchester, NH, tire shop said this week it’s fixing a record number of damaged tires and rims as a result of the potholes.

Smaller municipalities only have so much money to patch holes. The Pittsburgh-area borough of Homestead told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette it has already blown through its full supply of 2,000 pounds of cold patch asphalt.

The holes can also be a major safety issue. A 46-year-old man in Queens, New York City, was fatally thrown from a motor scooter last month in the Ozone Park neighborhood when he hit a pothole.

Getting a handle on the pothole problem isn’t easy. Rising global temperatures, stronger storms, and unusual weather patterns as result of the climate crisis are expected to worsen potholes, while cities like Baltimore face persistent funding challenges.

The city, unlike others in Maryland, is responsible for maintaining both local and state roadways in its jurisdiction. It also lost nearly $1 billion in expected state funding thanks to years of budget cuts after the 2008 recession.

“You’re talking about thousands upon thousands of lanes of road that didn’t get surfaced that would have,” Scott said.

After securing funding increases in recent years, Scott is now lobbying state lawmakers to keep such support over the long term.

Little is certain in life, but you can always count on there being more potholes to fill.

Niall Horan has discussed the death of his former bandmate Liam Payne, admitting he’s barely ‘touched the sides’ on his grief.

The One Direction star died unexpectedly aged 31 on October 16, 2024, after a fall from a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

At the time, his bandmates put out joint and individual statements, with Louis Tomlinson, Harry Styles, and Zayn Malik all speaking out since.

Now, Niall, 32, has shared how he ‘made the mistake of turning on’ the TV to see coverage of Payne’s death.

‘Looking down at your phone, that’s shock,’ he said on The Tommy Tiernan Show. ‘Then, stupidly turning on Sky News, and then the next channel.

‘The whole world is talking about it, like it’s the biggest breaking news on the planet at that minute. I found it… because I was in the pictures with him.

‘I found that very weird. What your man beside me? Him there? That’s a strange one.’

He admitted he still hasn’t wrapped his head around the loss, having known Payne since they shared a room together on X Factor in 2010.

After seeing some of the coverage, Niall firmly decided he wasn’t going to watch any more or speak publicly about the loss.

‘I can’t go any further than this because I’ve got a funeral to go to and things like that,’ he shared. ‘I can’t be worrying about what they’re going to say next, because I have my own grief to deal with.’

For several weeks after, updates continued to be shared as local police investigated Payne’s death, with five people charged after he fell from a third-floor balcony of the Casa Sur Hotel.

Months later, Buckinghamshire Coroner’s Court confirmed the cause of death was ‘polytrauma’, and the charges were dropped.

Speculation of excessive drug and alcohol usage at the time was rife, with photos revealing his decimated hotel room adding to the mystery.

The Dinner Party singer said he wanted to remember Payne through his own memories rather than what was being broadcast.

Niall had been in Buenos Aires around two weeks before the fall and met his former bandmate for a chat and a coffee, with Payne coming to his solo gig that night.

‘He was in the dressing room before and then, yeah, came to the show. It was great to see Liam,’ he acknowledged, explaining he then continued the tour before heading home.

‘Don’t know what day of the week it was,’ Niall continued. ‘I remember, and just looked down at my phone. I’d gotten a text.

‘I was just about to go asleep, and, you know, and the phone lights up, and you have a look, one last look. It was just pure shock.’

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Niall said he was aware of Payne’s issues, which the Strip That Down singer had been openly discussing in the years before his death.

Despite their closeness in their teen years, they had drifted and Niall shared he ‘wasn’t aware of the depth’ of his friend’s issues.

Choking up slightly, the singer added: ‘I grew up with this fella, and all of a sudden, it’s just no more. It’s such a strange thing to go through. You go through, like, what could I have done if I’d known more? Should I have dug more into it? Like, could I talk to other people to get an angle on it?”

Louis, who previously revealed Niall had been the one to tell him, has also expressed how he wished he’d reached out more to his friend.

In a separate interview, Harry said he was still struggling to come to terms with the loss and dealing with his own grief alongside fans.

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All remaining One Direction members are releasing (or already have released) solo albums this year, with Payne becoming a regular topic in interviews.

On his upcoming album, Dinner Party, Niall has written track End of an Era as a tribute to Payne.

Host Tommy said he felt for the former group, with Niall concluding: ‘I just haven’t wrapped my own head around it.

‘It’s a weird thing to be going through at thirty-something, that someone two weeks older than you can just be here today, gone tomorrow.’

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Donald Trump and his family could be put in serious danger if work on the $400 million White House ballroom is stopped, his administration has suggested.

A district judge in Washington DC provoked the president’s ire last week when he paused construction on the lavish extension.

White House lawyers are now urging a federal appeals court to halt that ruling and allow builders to get back on site.

In a motion filed on Friday, they argued the judge’s order is ‘threatening grave national-security harms to the White House, the president and his family, and the president’s staff’.

That is because materials are being installed to make the site ‘heavily fortified’, they said, with the ballroom project also including a bomb shelter and military installations according to the Guardian.

The side of the mansion has also been left ‘open and exposed’, the lawyers warned, following President Trump’s decision to go ahead with the demolition of the historic East Wing without consultation.

Elsewhere in the motion, the lawyers argued the district court did not have authority to tackle the suit, saying it ‘rests on a single pedestrian’s subjective architectural feelings’.

The Guardian reported that the decision from Judge Leon – who was nominated by George W Bush – addressed national security, and he exempted construction necessary for the security of the building from his order.

The president ‘has complete authority to renovate the White House’, the motion adds.

Leon’s decision came as a result of a preliminary injunction from the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which asked for construction to be paused amid their lawsuit alleging Trump exceeded his authority with the project.

In a Truth Social post after the ruling, Trump described the organisation as a ‘Radical Left Group of Lunatics’.

The creation of the ballroom is one aspect of the president’s ambition to reshape the heart of the US capital within his final term in office.

Other plans in the works include a 250-foot triumphal arch, while he has already unilaterally inserted his name into the title of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

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Some parts of the country are much worse for the bloodsuckers than others.

The “worst places in Scotland” for midges have been named ahead of the start of summer, with hikers being advised to avoid certain parts of the country if they don’t want to be set upon. Experts have also shared a list of locations around Scotland where hillwalkers and holidaymakers are less likely to encounter the biting beasts.

Midges, particularly the Culicoides impunctatus species, are biting flies that are usually very prevalent between late spring and late summer. The small flies are infamous for ruining hikes and camping trips in Scotland across the warmer months, with their bites leaving irritating and itchy lumps.

On Wednesday, April 3, travel experts at Two Scots Abroad shared a guide to midges in Scotland to help Scots and holidaymakers in the country alike minimise the impact of the blood-sucking insects. A total of nine destinations and regions across Scotland were singled out as especially bad for midges.

One of the areas in the country where midges are particularly prevalent according to the experts is the Northwest Highlands, which comprises Wester Ross, Assynt, and Sutherland, as well as part of Caithness. The region offers conditions very favourable for midges to breed, such as wet soil, damp moss, and sheltered glens with minimal wind.

In particular, Glen Coe, Fort William and the Great Glen, Torridon, and the Isle of Skye were named as top hotspots for midges that should be avoided if possible. Meanwhile, Argyll and Bute and parts of the North Coast 500 were named as locations with a lower risk but where midges are still common.

The Two Scots Abroad website states: “What all of these share: sheltered, boggy, wet highland terrain with limited wind exposure. If a place is famous for dramatic scenery and moody weather, it’s probably also famous for midges.”

On the other hand, there are certain parts of Scotland where you are far less likely to be bothered by midges during the spring and summer. According to Two Scots Abroad, these generally comprise open and coastal regions where strong winds prevent the insects from thriving.

Among the locations in Scotland where midges are unlikely to be as much of a nuisance are the Scottish Borders, Fife, Dumfries and Galloway, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and the Central Belt. Those in Orkney and Shetland may also have better luck when it comes to midges according to Two Scots Abroad.

Additionally, the experts shared tips that can help you avoid midge bites even if you head into areas such as the Northwest Highlands. According to Two Scots Abroad, using repellent such as Smidge, wearing head nets and brightly coloured clothes, and avoiding dusk and dawn can all minimise your chances of being bitten.

Scots keen to avoid the worst of the midges this spring and summer can also use The Scottish Midge Forecast to plan their trips. The forecast uses data from biting midge traps and mini-weather stations across the country to provide a regularly updated view of midge levels throughout Scotland.

When it comes to Easter, it has to be lamb for me. Always. To shake things up a bit — as you don’t want to be cooking the same thing year on year, now do you? — I like to take a shoulder of lamb (the bigger, the better), generously drizzle it with tahini and slow roast it in the oven with lemons and wild garlic. A big bowl of soft polenta is the perfect companion, it’s like eating a hug. The whole thing is simple, easy to cook, and my gosh — the flavour! If that’s not your bag, try shoulder with fresh lavender, rosemary, garlic, honey and salt. Pick your rosemary straight from the garden and blitz the leaves with salt in a blender. Remove the lavender buds from the stalks and add them to the honey. I rub the lamb all over with salt before placing in a roasting tray in the oven, covered with foil, for 20 minutes at 200°C. Remove the foil and leave to roast for a further 40 minutes before pouring over the lavender and honey and returning to the oven for a final 10 minutes. Resting is key — I do this for 10 to 15 minutes with some foil on top to keep it warm, before serving with pan juices and spring vegetables.

Resident doctors will begin their strike at 7am on Tuesday (April 7), which will run for six days until 7am on Monday (April 13).

Hospital teams across the country, including in York, say they will continue to “minimise” this disruption, with GP practices, NHS 111 and urgent and emergency care services continuing to be available throughout the industrial action.

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The NHS said that patients should attend planned medical appointments unless they have been contacted to reschedule.

The strike is expected to be “particularly challenging” for the NHS due to a short notice period and the timing of the strike, which falls during the Easter holiday.

“The government has the power to avert this strike action”, the BMA has said (Image: PA)

In a statement, leaders of the action, the British Medical Association (BMA), said: “The government has the power to avert this strike action – by coming back to the table with a credible offer on both jobs and pay.

“We remain willing and available to re-enter negotiations, but we are not willing to risk locking in further pay erosion.

“The government shifted the goalposts on pay at the 11th hour, leaving us with no option but to make ourselves heard from the picket line.”

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer gave the resident doctors committee of the BMA a 48-hour deadline to reconsider the government’s deal on pay and jobs, which included the offer of extra NHS training posts.

As the deadline approached, the BMA set out a list of demands for Government which would need to be addressed for them to call off the strike.

Wes Streeting had urged doctors to reconsider their industrial action (Image: PA)

Responding, a Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “It is disappointing that the BMA has decided to press ahead with strikes next week, despite conversations we have been having in recent days in a bid to protect the NHS from strikes.

“This government offered resident doctors a generous deal to improve their pay, career progression and working lives that would have seen resident doctors on average 35.2 per cent better off than they were four years ago.

“Because the BMA resident doctor committee has not agreed to call off these strikes and put an offer to members, we will now not be able to deliver the 1,000 extra training places which the BMA asked for.

“These posts would have gone live this month, but as systems now need to prepare for strikes and more uncertainty, it simply won’t be operationally or financially possible to launch these posts in April in time to recruit for this year – this won’t impact the overall number of resident doctors and the NHS will be there for patients when they need it.

“Our attention and that of leaders across the NHS is now on protecting patients, staff and our NHS by minimising disruption to the health service.”

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In a statement issued on Wednesday evening, Dr Jack Fletcher, chairman of the doctors’ committee, said: “It is not unexpected, but extremely disappointing to see the government has scrapped 1,000 new specialty training places at a time when doctors so urgently need more jobs and patients so desperately need more doctors.

“It is genuinely disheartening to be at this point after what had been constructive talks up until a few weeks ago when the government moved the goalposts.

“It is simply wrong that the development of the doctors of the future is being used as a pawn like this.

“We have consistently maintained that we are willing to postpone industrial action should a genuinely credible offer be provided.

“This remains the case now, up to, and throughout any period of industrial action.”

‘Longer waits expected’

A spokesperson for York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust said: “During the strikes, there may be fewer doctors working than usual, and they will need to prioritise life-saving care.

“Less urgent cases may experience longer waits during strikes.

“The NHS is asking patients to choose services appropriately during industrial action and take simple steps to help ensure care is available to patients who need it most.

“This includes using 111 online as the first port of call for health needs, and as ever only using 999 if it is serious or life-threatening emergency.”

Soaps are regularly changing their schedules due to other programmes being shown in their usual time slots, including football matches.

While fans of the soap will still get to watch an episode of EastEnders on Easter Monday (April 6), it will be at a later time.

Here’s what we know about the changes and when you can watch the soap this week.

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EastEnders to see TV schedule change this week

The Easter schedule will see Celebrity Escape to the Country fill EastEnders’ usual slot as it starts at 7.45pm, with EastEnders usually beginning at 7.30pm on BBC One on Mondays.

It’s not all bad news though, as you can still get your soap fix on Monday as EastEnders will start an hour later than usual – at 8.30pm on the same channel.

Despite this schedule change, soap fans will be able to watch EastEnders on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at its usual time this week.

ITV makes schedule changes to Coronation Street and Emmerdale

Fans of Corrie and Emmerdale can also expect some schedule changes this year because, back in 2025, ITV announced changes to its soap schedule.

From January 2026, the broadcaster introduced a “soaps power hour” on weekdays with 30-minute Emmerdale episodes at 8pm and 30-minute Coronation Street episodes at 8.30pm.

Emmerdale’s most shocking deaths

Coronation Street previously aired for three hour-long episodes a week, while Emmerdale aired four 30-minute episodes and one hour-long instalment.

In May 2025, ITV chief executive Dame Carolyn McCall said the company was making “good progress” on a cost-cutting drive, and that she expected to make £30 million of non-content savings during 2025.

ITV also introduced changes to its popular daytime TV shows such as Good Morning Britain (GMB) and Lorraine.

From January this year, GMB has been extended by half an hour, while Lorraine Kelly’s morning talk show has been reduced to 30 minutes for 30 weeks of the year.

Are you happy about the EastEnders schedule change this week? Let us know in the comments.

Emergency services were called to Midridge Road just before 8.30pm on Saturday (April 4) after the smash.

In total, five ambulances were sent to the scene and took five people to Darlington Memorial Hospital.

The circumstances of the crash are not yet known. Durham Police have been contacted for more information.

A spokesperson for North East Ambulance Service said: “We were called to a road traffic incident on Midridge Road, Newton Aycliffe, shortly before 8.30pm on April 4.

“We dispatched five double-crewed ambulances and a clinical team leader. Five patients were taken to Darlington Memorial Hospital.”

Some popular Easter treats could be helping your heart

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Millions of chocolate Easter eggs are set to be devoured this weekend and, while overindulging in the beloved sweet treat is never advisable, choosing the right kind of chocolate could actually bring some surprising health benefits.

Health specialists have shed light on the potential advantages of dark chocolate and its possible effects on your heart, cholesterol and brain function. Dark chocolate typically contains between 35 and 90 per cent cocoa solids, considerably more than other varieties, while also tending to have lower levels of sugar and dairy.

Heart health

It is the elevated cocoa content that gives dark chocolate its edge when it comes to cardiovascular protection. As BHF Senior Dietitian Dell Stanford explained: “Cocoa solids are a good source of flavanols, a type of chemical that naturally occurs in plants.

“Flavanols give dark chocolate its slightly bitter taste, and its potential health benefits such a helping to lower blood pressure and making blood vessels more flexible.”

A 2025 review established that foods containing flavanols, cocoa amongst them, showed potential in reducing the risk of heart and circulatory conditions, as well as helping to bring down high blood pressure. However, commercially produced chocolates tend to contain lower flavanol levels than the cocoa bean products typically used in research studies.

Cocoa nibs boast some of the highest concentrations of flavanols, while milk chocolate contains none at all. Notably, the flavanol content in both milk and dark chocolates can vary considerably and bears little relation to the stated cocoa percentage.

Flavanol levels aren’t typically displayed on packaging, making it virtually impossible to determine how much your preferred chocolate bar contains. In the UK, cocoa-based products can only be labelled ‘rich in flavanols’ if they deliver 200mg daily, a threshold most chocolates simply cannot meet.

It’s also practically unfeasible to obtain all the necessary flavanols from dark chocolate alone, as consuming the required quantity would lead to adverse health consequences from excessive sugar and fat intake.

Brain

The flavanols present in dark chocolate may also enhance oxygen supply, nerve function and blood circulation to the brain. According to ZOE, these flavanols have been associated with increased nerve cell development, particularly within the hippocampus.

Previous research involving rats has indicated that flavanols might shield the brain from deteriorating function and conditions such as dementia, though further studies are required to establish this conclusively.

Cholesterol

Dark chocolate typically contains elevated levels of polyphenols. These compounds can boost ‘good’ cholesterol levels in your body while simultaneously reducing ‘bad’ cholesterol. Nevertheless, according to the BHF, these advantages can be negated if you’re consuming excessive amounts of chocolate due to its sugar and saturated fat content.

Professor Tim Spector from ZOE advises choosing chocolate containing at least 70 per cent cocoa, while remaining cautious of varieties that may appear dark but still harbour high quantities of refined sugar or dairy products.